The real stories from inside the F1 paddock

Magny-Cours

One has to smile sometimes when you hear Bernie Ecclestone in action. The other day he told a German magazine that it was logical to have a French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours on June 23. In F1 terms, yes, it is logical. The F1 circus will be coming home from Canada after a race on June 9, with no Race in New Jersey on June 16, as had been planned. The next scheduled Grand Prix is the British GP on June 30 and so on paper the June 23 race in France would be perfect.

Except for one tiny little detail. The Le Mans 24 Hours, France’s biggest motor racing, takes place at Le Mans on June 22-23. To put the French GP up against this would be decidedly daft as it would mean that French race fans would have to choose between the two and both would therefore suffer.

Talk about stirring the pot…

The most likely outcome of all this (if there is one) would be a race at the end of August at Paul Ricard, but as the promoters of the idea do not have the money needed it is all rather academic at the moment.

I wonder if an F1 race at Magny-Cours would make Le Mans suffer all that much. It is a different type of event and many people have to plan well ahead with accommodation, etc and many are people from the local area, enjoying their own annual party. In fact, I expect the considerably increased exposure the race would get in the media would probably suit the Auto Club de l’Ouest just fine. It has been getting a bit tired lately.

Hard to say when the Sky deal has, for the most part, crippled the BBC’s ratings even for live races. Because of the clash, the BBC put the Wimbledon men’s final on BBC One, while the GP went on BBC Two (they had put the pre-race waffle on BBC One). BARB projected viewing figures of 2.86m for the 2012 race on BBC Two, plus 0.455m on Sky Sports F1, while the 2011 race got 4.94m on BBC One.

How about a race at Bugatti Circuit at Le Mans on the date Ed Greenhalg or end of august suggested. There wil be stands and motorsports fans so it would be a good track but add a new section from the Sarthe beccause it is a littlle short

Well don’t stop there, how about the whole track – F1 qualifying 2pm Saturday, race 5.30pm Sunday or something with the 24 Hours from 4pm-4pm in between! Of course this isn’t going to happen, but it would be pretty amazing!

There will be no driver/commentators left for F1 if they clash with Le Mans.😉

The Le Mans fan is a different type of chap (or chapess) to the F1 fan. with F1 agitating for shorter races because of the “modern” attention span of viewers, the thought of a whole 24 hours is another planet, a different way of life. So I doubt may of each fan base will desert their normal sport.

It might be interesting to see the attendance figures for a Magny-Cours GP vs le 24 Heurs de Mans. Also to compare the entrance and stand prices etc.

No Berne has nothing to do with Paul Ricard he said so recently.🙂 so it must be true.

Magny-Cours, with all due respect, is in the middle of nowhere. As for attendance figures, not sure about how much Magny-Cours was pulling in its last few F1 years, but Le Mans nowadays has a consistent race weekend crowd of around 250 thousand people, of which 50-70 thousand are British. It’s certainly one of the biggest sporting events in Europe in terms of on-site attendance. As for the Le Mans fan base vs the F1 fan base, there is still a certain amount of overlap and there always will be.

‘Normal Sport”? So the fact that I have not missed an F1 race all season, yet somehow have avoided missing a WEC race either doesn’t make you think.

I’ll happily watch 2 races at once, the F1 on the TV and WEC online, but not for Le Mans, that gets my TV for the whole 24 hours. NOTHING interferes with Le Mans.

I’d happily skip whatever F1 race was on that weekend, and so would 99% of the F1 watchers in an online group I’m part of because F1 is a procession that I have trouble paying attention to, Le Mans is 24 hours of excitement.

“In politics one needs to hitch
One’s wagon to a star
A toast to Minister Talleyrand!
Survival is his aim
A man from whom ‘Duplicity’
Could be a middle name
Allegiance to a governmenet
Doesn’t mean a thing
He’d be pleased with revolutionaries
Delighted with a King:
One has to be detatched
One has to be devoid
Of any sentimental ties
If on’es to be employed
Essentially, eventually
All leaders are destroyed”

As i recall the FIA has already asked the ACO to move Le Mans to the 23rd, so not much chance of another move.

From what we saw at Valencia and Abu Dhabi you can never be sure that races that are usually snooze fests are always going to turn out that way, but putting the go-kart track of Magny-Cours up against the spectacle of La Sarthe probably isn’t the best idea in the world.

How about a replacement event at Indianapolis? A possible French GP on the day of the LeMans 24 hours talked about publicly by Bernie may just be a matter of negotiating with another circuit to raise the price.